


when i am laid in earth

by Whitnium



Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:28:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22062571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whitnium/pseuds/Whitnium
Summary: “Ain’t no use in cryin’ over an old man like me, kid.”MAJOR CHARACTER DEATHSpoilers. Takes place post-game.Written for a friend.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	when i am laid in earth

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a friend. The prompt was "Karol: make me cry"
> 
> Title from "Dido and Aeneas"

**"So I guess my dream is to be able to dream again someday."**

  
The Adephagos is gone fifteen years when Raven suddenly collapses, clutches at his chest and falls like a stone; red light spills between his fingers, sputters like lightning from his heart. 

He falls without a sound. 

He does not rise again. 

The blastia in his chest is exhausted, its formula fading, the body cracked and cold. Together his friends analyze every line of Alexei’s old research, scour ancient texts, work without pause for days trying to find something, _anything._

Together they can save the world, but even together they cannot save one of their own. 

Nobody wants to ask the question—to do so seems too much like acceptance, and none of them can accept _this._

“Where do you want to die?”

Brave Vesperia takes him to Dahngrest; the closest thing to a home for his vagabond heart.

Karol does not leave Raven’s side in the final day, clutches the hand of the only father he has ever known and sobs until the tears are as hot as the anger in his bones. It isn’t fair. He helped save the world, enjoyed a life reinvigorated. With his heart he should have lived forever—

Words rattle in Raven’s chest for far too long, hampered by every breath he struggles to take: “Ain’t no use in cryin’ over an old man like me, kid.” A brief flash of emotion shatters the pallor on his face, vestiges of memories come to him at the end. “I’ve lived … three lives already. That’s enough for just about anybody.” 

“No.” It is the only word that Karol can manage; grief smothers the rest, crushes his body until he trembles for the weight of it. 

“Hey.” 

Scarcely spoken, a ghost of a sound. Karol scrubs his eyes with the back of one hand. “Raven?”

“Don’t worry—” a feeble cough breaks the sentence, and shatters Karol’s resolve with it.

Raven struggles for the final words, claws for them with all the ferocity of the times he never tried, all those years ago. “—I got to dream … again.”

He dies with eyes open, the faintest of a smile on his face until his expression goes slack. 

“—R-Raven!” Painfully hoarse, the words slice Karol's throat as the keening sound spills from his lips. 

A lifetime passes; Karol rises from beside the deathbed somehow older, the loss now irreparable void in his heart. His hand reaches for Raven’s face, trembling in time with his frantic heartbeat; he lets his fingers linger too long on the cold skin as if his touch could somehow reverse it all. But the death that came for the man twice before is at last successful, immutably so. Karol closes Raven’s eyes for the last time, speaks a requiem through tears so thick they nearly choke him:

“I’m sorry … dad.” 


End file.
